Mircea had Radu by the back of his neck and was pushing him deeper and deeper into the unforgiving thorns of a dense rosebush. Mircea was strong and thick like their father, but his facial hair was still patchy. Sometimes Lada caught him standing over a reflecting pool and tugging on his sparse mustache like he could make the symbol of his status grow faster.
“What did you hear?” Mircea hissed, unaware of his audience. Radu screamed as Mircea pushed harder.
“Nothing, nothing,” Radu insisted.
Lada silently unsheathed the knife she always wore under her sash and held it behind her back. “There you are.” She scowled. “Father has been asking for you.”
Mircea looked over, face open and pleasant as though he had not been caught torturing their brother. “Has he?”
“Something about the boyars.” Lada lifted her free hand and waved it in disinterest. It was a good lie. There was always something about the boyars that needed attending to. She plucked a rose and held it to her face. She hated the way roses smelled, their sweetness too fragile. She wanted a garden of evergreens. A garden of stones. A garden of swords. She smiled conspiratorially at Mircea. “He seemed angry.”
Mircea met her smile. “He is always angry.”
“Perhaps his cap is too tight.”
“Perhaps his breeches are too small.”
“Perhaps,” Lada said, noting that Mircea had relaxed his grip on Radu’s neck and that Radu had the sense to stay perfectly still, “what is inside his breeches is too small.”
Mircea let go of Radu, throwing his head back and roaring a laugh. He clapped his hand on Lada’s shoulder, squeezing too hard. “Be careful, Sister. You have dirt inside that mouth.”
He directed one vicious kick at Radu’s prone backside, then hurried past them into the castle. There was meanness at Mircea’s core. Lada had watched him torment the castle dogs for sport, causing pain for no reason. She did not understand it. Why do anything without purpose? She had no love whatsoever for him, but she had a healthy portion of fear.
“Come on.” Lada yanked Radu free of the bush, his sleeves catching and tearing on the thorns. Based on his cries, his skin caught and tore as well. She pulled him along after her, out of the garden and through the gate into an abandoned stable, empty save for the overwhelming odor of rotting hay. Any extra horses they once had had been sold to cover their father’s spiraling debts. Most of the main stable was occupied by Janissary horses, boyar horses, horses of their debtors.
“If Mircea finds father, he will know I lied.” Lada sat on the floor, skirts bunching beneath her.
Radu wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Why did you help me?”
“Why do you always need help?” Exasperated, she directed him to sit next to her and examined his face. The cuts were shallow, nothing serious. She pulled a few thorns from his arms, not pausing at his whimpers. She was never kind or tender with Radu, but what she did was for his own good. He was too delicate for this world, and the sooner he changed, the easier life would be for him. “What was Mircea so angry about?”
Radu shifted, angling his face away from her. “Nothing.”
She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. A stray beam of light hit his ears, and she felt Bogdan’s loss and her loneliness like a pain in her stomach. Sighing, she put an arm around Radu and drew him closer. Would their father send Radu away, too? Would he let Mircea, the eldest and most favored, kill him?
The pale spring day was chilly, and her wet hair left her shivering. “You have to stay away from Mircea,” she said. “He is meaner than Father’s falcon, and far dumber.”
Radu sniffled a laugh. “And far uglier.”
“And far more likely to carry fleas.”
They were quiet for a while, breathing together, when Radu spoke again. “I was hiding behind the drapes. I heard him speaking with a Danesti family boyar.”
In the fifteen years before their father took the throne, there had been ten princes, alternating between two families: the Basarab line, now out of contention with no heirs of age, and the Danesti line. The Danesti family was not happy with the Draculesti usurpers, first Lada and Radu’s uncle Alexandru and now their father. And, as history proved, being prince was a very tenuous position in Wallachia.
“Why was he speaking with the Danestis?”
Radu squirmed, and Lada realized she was squeezing his shoulder so tightly she was hurting him. She let go, and he said, “There is talk of a boyar coalition. They mentioned Hunyadi.”
Lada’s skin prickled. Hunyadi was the military leader of Transylvania and Hungary, their constantly shifting border countries to the west. Where her father had sworn to fight the Ottomans, Hunyadi actually did. He had beaten the sultan on numerous occasions.